Sharing folders and files in Office 2010

[skipro_98]

Not sure if this belongs here or on the networking board. Anyway...
We have a network of about 20 pcs. I recently installed four new machines that run Windows 7 with Office 2010. The server is running Server 2003. Three of the machines worked perfectly from the beginning, accessing the server and sharing folders and files. One machine will only open files in "read only" mode. I have shared all the folders and given every permission there is but it will only open the files in "read only". It is a critical accounting machine that has to share and change files. What am I missing?

 

[DelJo63]

hmm; your wording is imprecise so need to make sure what you mean,

Office 2010 can not be shared other than the Calendar events and that's not done
via "sharing".

You don't state the application that is sharing the common file on the server,
but I assume some accounting system installed on multiple client systems are attempting
concurrent access to the same accounting data.

You don't say if this has ever worked before with this setup or if this is the initial install for the Sharing of the accounting data.

First action is to access that file by only one system at a time (ie: disconnect the mapped Drive letter) and get that working.

 

[skipro_98]

Thank you Jobeard. They share excel spread sheets. By that I mean one person works on one part then another person works on another part so the sheets can't be read only. But I solved the problem. I had a fresh back-up so I renamed the file then created a new folder with the original name and just restored it. No idea what went wrong originally but it works fine now and I'll be a hero on Monday morning.

Thanks again!

 

[DelJo63]

OUCH! this is dangerous!!!

Consider these precise sequences of operations:

1. user1 opens srvr\excl-file
2. user2 opens srvr\excl-file
3. user1 writes row10/CellB and saves the file and quits
4. user2 writes row100/CellD, saves and quits

what is the state of the excl-file?

As both users opened the same file, they loaded the same data in the entire spreadsheet,
ie: Users 1&2 have exactly the same data in row10/CellB and row100/CellD

User1 saves first and row10/CellB in the file are updated

Now when user2 saves his work in row100/CellD, he replaces user1's update
with the original value of row10/CellB.

Excel files are not intended to be shared in this manner!

 

[skipro_98]

i agree with you in that scenario. However, as soon as user 1 opens the spreadsheet, it locks it so that everyone else can only open it as "Read Only".

Additionally, they sit right next to each other and the way their duties are assigned they would never both have it open at the same time.

Thanks for your concern.

 

[DelJo63]

i agree with you in that scenario. However, as soon as user 1 opens the spreadsheet, it locks it so that everyone else can only open it as "Read Only".

YES! That's what should occur, but sometimes programmers do funny things to bypass normal protections

Additionally, they sit right next to each other and the way their duties are assigned they would never both have it open at the same time.

Super; as long as any concurrancy is blocked by R/O, then the file IS safe (and in this manner, you really have multiple user access and not concurrent sharing )